The Georgia Guidestones have been part of the landscape in Elberton, Georgia for a quarter of a century. Tourists flood to Elberton each year to see the 19-foot-tall granite monument, often posing for pictures standing beside it.

After 25 years, a Christian organization named The Resistance is calling for the monument’s immediate removal.

"The satanic Georgia Guidestones must be destroyed," insists John Conner of The Resistance. "The Guidestones should be smashed into a million pieces, and then the rubble used for a construction purpose."

The notion of hacking the monument into smithereens for construction scrap has a certain appeal, given the hype of how it came to dominate the lonely landscape in the first place.

The Georgia Guidestones were ordered, constructed and paid for in total anonymity.

The monument, which has stood since 1980, consists of four large stones with 10 commandments engraved into the sides in eight different languages.

Some folk call them the 10 commandments, others a set of New Age Golden Rules.

The first commandment or rule calls on everyone to "Maintain humanity under 500,000 in perpetual balance with nature."

A little difficult to achieve when considering that the current world population tops 6 billion.

Other commandments or rules speak of a world court and a new universal language.

The origination of the Georgia Guidestones is steeped in bizarre mysticism. They were said to be paid for by an anonymous man with the unlikely name of R.C. Christian back in 1979. Indeed, the name of the donor has remained a secret ever since. As folk legend would have it, a certain Mr. Christian came to town out of nowhere and just as quickly returned to nowhere.

Elberton, Georgia is self-touted as the granite capitol of the world, leading many to believe the creation of the monument was a publicity stunt for the town.

Then there is the camp that dismisses the stones as the creation of an eccentric environmentalist.

Many Christians have seen the Georgia Guidestones as the New World Order’s 10 Commandments, of the type already written up by United Nations Poster Boy Maurice Strong and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, the duo who authored the Earth Charter.

Others see the stones as an out-of-the-way monument of the occult.

Whatever the reasons for their existence, Conner and Company have organized a national movement for the destruction of the stones.

Conner is the author of The Resistance Manifesto , a publication that exposes Satanic influences in America, including the meaning behind the pseudonym "R.C. Christian", the name of the man who paid to have the monument erected.

The Resistance is a worldwide subculture of Christians "fighting the invasion of privacy from the growing New World Order."

In addition to organizing national movements for the destruction of the Georgia Guidestones, members of The Resistance organize to hit the airwaves. They often flood the airwaves of call-in radio and television shows on topics of interests where they can throw the direction of the show and its host in their favour.

"Power to The Resistance" is both their motivation and their catchphrase.

According to Conner, the flood of calls has been made to numerous national programs, including Larry King, Bill O’Reilly, Shawn Hannity. Allan Colmes and Michael Savage.

"People need to remember that the airwaves belong to the public, and that these orporations have the privilege of using them," says Conner. "We simply exercise our rights to free speech over the airwaves, which we own."

If you’ve never had a gander at the Guidestones, you can see them by logging on to www.TheResistanceManifesto.com . But you better log on soon, as group members insist they’re coming down.

Meanwhile, stray dogs, cats and coyotes in Elberton, Georgia, will be looking for a new place to leave their collective calling cards.

Every summer thousands of visitors flock to Elbert County to see the Georgia Guidestones. The story behind the Georgia Guidestones is pure Hollywood. Catching ny truth as far as the stones are concerned would be akin to chasing after dust devils on the windy streets of an abandoned ghost town.

The Georgia Guidestones, touted, as "America’s Stonehenge" is a huge blue granite monument that seemed to come from out of nowhere to become a permanent fixture on the haunting landscape. But even the most ethereal of beings must respond to the call of nature, and it was more a human than heavenly hand that led to the monument’s erection. Giving new meaning to the expression "etched in stone", the monument’s engraved messages come in eight different languages on four giant stones that support the common capstone, which features 10 Guides, or commandments.

UN Poster Boy Maurice Strong and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who have decreed that their Earth Charter has already all but replaced the Ten Commandments of Moses, must have overlooked the Guidestones.

In any case, Georgia Guidestone Commandment Numero Uno is "Maintain humanity nder 500,000,000, in perpetual balance with nature." (There’s no explanation how the other nine-tenths of the world’s population would be disposed of). But Strong and Gorbachev, both ardent advocates of population control would agree with the Guidestone’s first commandment.

Somewhat romantically, the monument was built on one of the highest hilltops in Elbert County, Georgia.

Constructed in the 1980s, how the Georgia Guidestones came to be is steeped in ystery and secrecy of the rigorously imposed kind.

An Internet write-up by Radio Liberty does explain the bits of its history that are known. "No one knows the true identity of the man or men, who commissioned construction. All that is known for certain is that in June 1979, a well-dressed, articulate stranger visited the office of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company and announced that he wanted to build an edifice to transmit a message to mankind." (Environmental activists often seem to have more money than brains.) To continue with the Radio Liberty story, "He identified himself as R.C. Christian (imaginative chap), "but it soon became apparent that was not his real name."

No kidding, how many people do you know who answer to the name "Roman Catholic Christian"?

The stranger confided that he represented a group of men who wanted to offer direction to humanity, but to date, two decades later, no one knows who R.C. Christian really was, or even the names of those he represented.

The less than cryptic messages of the Georgia Guidestones need no decoding. They deal with four major fields: Governance and the establishment of a world government; Population and reproduction control; The environment and man’s relationship to nature and Spirituality.

A book, written by the man who called himself R.C. Christian, was said to be found in the Elberton public library. Its pages explain that the monument he commissioned had been erected in recognition of Thomas Paine and the occult philosophy he advocated. Should you decide to visit Elberton, Georgia anytime soon, you will undoubtedly recognize the site by the number of occult ceremonies and mystic celebrations that continue there to the present day.

As Radio Liberty points out, "Though relatively unknown to most people, it (the monument) is an important link to the occult hierarchy that dominates the world in which we live."

Yoko Ono, the widow of John Lennon, knows about the guidestones, but then again oko is not most people.

"I want people to know about the stones…We’re headed toward a world where we might blow ourselves up and maybe the globe will not exist…it’s a nice time to reaffirm ourselves, knowing all the beautiful things that are in this country and the Georgia Stones symbolize that," she said.

When she was readying herself for a recent comeback as a standup comedienne, Roseanne Barr said pretty much the same thing. Some plain folk, however are not buying into the guidestones and file them under "U" for urban legends gone wild.

"Why are they allowed to stand?" asks an Internet reactor.

Oh, come now. They do, afterall make a convenient peeing post for the meandering cats, dogs and lost souls of bucolic Elbert County.

And it was R.C. Christian himself, afterall who ordered the unwashed masses in Guidestone Commandment Number 10: "Be not a cancer on the earth; Leave roomfor nature."

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 25 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard and the former Brampton Daily Times.